Bao Ninh's Contribution to Vietnamese and World Literature

Analyzes and presents the works of Bao Ninh, the most well-known writer in modern Vietnamese literature. His works are renowned both in Vietnam and worldwide, and his novel The Sorrow of War, which has been translated into more than 15 languages, is considered to be one of the classic works of war literature.

This book by two award-winning scholars, one in war literature and the other in war history, presents for the first time an overall assessment of Bao Ninh’s works, notably of his celebrated novel and his short stories. It outlines his life, setting it in the context of war-torn Vietnam whence he was a teenage soldier at the age of 17 in the North Vietnamese People’s Army (NVPA); highlights the main themes of the corpus of his writings, inter alia of suffering and trauma of war impacts of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of veterans, of the futility of war; discusses his approach to writing; compares his writings with others in war literature; and examines and assesses his especial place in world literature. This pioneering monograph of the scholarly evaluation of Bao Ninh himself and his works further engages in the discourse of his contribution to modern Vietnamese literature and world literature.

Encouraging a better understanding of wars and conflicts, the book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of modern Asian history, in particular the Vietnam War, Southeast Asian Studies, and Vietnamese and World literature.